Milo Mittens!

Milo!

My little guy. My fluffa-muffin. Schmorker-porkers. Lil' Boogs...Milo Mittens.

Milo is a Scottish fold. Which generally would mean that his ears would be folded like a fortune cookie but, unfortunately, those adorable ears come at a price! So I decided to skip the folded ears all together. You see, you can't breed 2 Scottish Folds together, they end up deformed, and so you have to breed them with either British Shorthairs or Persians. About half of the kittens will end up with folded ears and the others will get normal ears. Being on a budget when I was kitten shopping I decided that paying $500 for fortune cookie ears was a little silly, so we ended up with Milo, the "Perk Eared Fold".

Milo was such a little trooper today. I took him to the vet to get fixed and when I picked him up he looked like this:


Within minutes however, the little knucklehead was trying to chase around a toy mouse but was too dizzy to really be that much of a threat. Anyways, all of that to say, I'm really proud of my brave guy and I'm so happy that he's home :)

I love flowers...

...but not florists.

Enjoy a sampling of some of the flowers I'll be using for my May 2010 wedding! Peach roses and decorative cabbage!! Unique but not weird. Well..not too weird.

Flowers were never high on my list of priorities for my wedding. I've always loved flowers, loved their smell, their vibrant colors... But of all the things that make up a wedding, flowers got cut down because I wanted a nicer dress and a nicer photographer!

I figured that I didn't need the stress of making my own bouquets on my big day, so I scheduled a consultation with a florist (who shall remain nameless). My mom and I went to meet this woman at Starbucks where we waited..and waited. She was 20 minutes late before I got a phone call telling me she had gone to the wrong Starbacks and she was on her way. Once she arrived, she pulled out a cd with pictures of her work on it and thank goodness I had brought my laptop along with me because I would have had no way to view her portfolio!! Apart from the disk of photos (which were all teeny-tiny thumbnails) she brought 2 or 3 bridal magazines and started flipping through the pages asking me what I liked. And as I was pointing out gorgeous bouquets, crafted by the amazingly talented Martha Stuart, I was thinking to myself.. "I don't need to see Martha's work..I need to see YOUR work" But I kept that thought to myself as I pointed out a stunning fluffy flower and asked what it was. I was sitting between my mom and the florist and my mom looked at me and said, "Oh that's a ranunculus." and the florist (who hadn't heard my mom" promptly said, "That's a rhinoceros".

A rhinoceros.

The large animal with the horn, native to Africa...yeeeeaaahh.

I pretended not to notice and we kept flipping though Modern Florist. She kept trying to tell me that roses with pearls would look really nice, and while I agreed with her, the theme of our wedding is more of a Vintage-Garden Party thing.. So I asked her if she had any suggestions that would fit better and I told her that I wanted weird stuff in my bouquets, and if it was normal (roses, baby's breath, etc...) I probably wouldn't like it. She got this crazy look in her eyes and said, "I like weird too! I have a great idea!"
Me: "...okay..."
Crazy Florist: "I have a friend...she makes these hair bows...WE CAN PUT THEM ON THE TABLES!"

I tried to keep that thought out of my mind and I asked her what her prices were, figuring that if she was super affordable I could pretend the whole "hair bow" thing had never happened. I told her I wanted the exact same bouquet as my bridesmaids and asked her for a quote. Her prices were $50 per bridesmaid and $165 for me!! Whoo!! I reminded her that I wanted, in essence, a bridesmaid's bouquet.. and she again quoted me $165... More than triple the price for the same bouquet.

I made an awkward chuckling sound and tried to wind up the consult. Then this woman tells me that she'd be e-mailing me a contract and we could confirm her services that day!! I politely told her that this was just a consultation and I still had other florists to meet with. She got huffy and asked me when I could let her know, I told her within 2 weeks, and I left the building.

That was my first and last florist consultation.

Needless to say the flower district sounds so much more appealing now that it did before! My friend, Alex, and I will be venturing into the wilderness of downtown L.A. in search of the perfect flowers for our 2010 weddings. Here's to homemade, and here's to insanity!

More pictures to come!